


Hanahaki in Various Shades

by qwanderer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aaaaaaangst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Betrayal, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Lack of Consent for Medical Procedures, M/M, Serious Illness, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 16:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15610434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: "It's my choice," he managed before the flowers choked him again.This time, he didn't get his breath back.





	Hanahaki in Various Shades

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags, this is a bit of a bumpy ride! I am in a weird mood.
> 
> This takes place sometime in Season 2. The rest of the show Does Not Occur in this reality. Just FYI.

**~I~**

**White Dittany**

**Keith**

~✬~

Keith had always known that Pidge was a girl. 

Or, at least, suspected that she wasn't a boy. There was something about the way she held herself. All boys mimic the macho strut before they master it, but it came even less naturally to Pidge than most. 

Of course, he probably would have loved Pidge no matter what. He wasn't entirely straight, after all. And she was incredible. So smart, so determined. Intensity and fire to match his own. Beautiful in an unpolished, battle-ready way that he appreciated a lot. 

It was a few months into the whole Voltron thing that Keith coughed up the first petal. 

"What's this?" he asked, staring at it. He thought he must have inhaled it somewhere on the last planet they'd visited, but how could he not have noticed? 

When two more followed, he frowned down at them. Long, white and silky, tapering to graceful points, like nothing he remembered seeing recently, on an alien planet or otherwise. 

"This must be some kind of alien disease, something magic," he said. "Coran, can you fix it?" 

"Well, I'd love to, Number Four," Coran said, "but I've never seen anything like it. Are you sure it's not an Earth disease?" 

"Hanahaki," Shiro murmured. His eyes were wide and sorrowful as he pronounced the word with familiar precision. 

"What is it?" Keith asked him. "What do you know?" 

"Hanahaki disease," he said, solemn and obviously troubled, "happens when you fall in love with someone who doesn't love you back. Eventually, if your feelings aren't reciprocated... it's generally fatal." 

"Shit," Keith said, closing his eyes. He had to look at Pidge. He had to see how she was reacting to this. He ventured a glance. 

She looked grim. 

"I guess... I guess you don't feel the same," he said. 

"No. I'm sorry." She looked like she was going to cry. 

"I don't want to push you," he said, "but do you think you ever could?" 

She bit her lip. "I've never even had a crush," she admitted. "I don't think... I mean, maybe I'm just too young? But I don't think falling in love really _happens_ to me." She grimaced. "I'm sorry, Keith." 

"There has to be another way." Keith looked to Shiro. 

"The flowers can be surgically removed," Shiro offered, "but the feelings go with them. Most people choose not to have the surgery." 

Pidge made a frustrated noise. "Well, most people can go suck it. We're giving Keith the surgery." 

"No," Keith said, firmly and immediately. "I don't want this feeling taken away from me. It means too much." 

"Then we'll find another way," Pidge said, and stalked off towards her lab. 

~✬~

She stayed there for days. 

Her determination to help him just made him fall faster. Soon he was coughing up whole flowers. 

She took them, examined them, dissected them. Researched them intensively. 

"White dittany," she pronounced. "Symbolizing love and passion, and thought to be an aphrodisiac." She sighed. "None of this information is helpful." 

"It's all right," Keith said. 

"It's not all right!" she snapped at him. "There's a perfectly viable solution to this. Let me operate. We can fix this." 

"Don't you dare!" He glared right back at her beautifully fiery eyes. "This feeling's so important. I'm keeping it. You deserve to be loved!" He broke off in a coughing fit, producing two new flowers as she yelled. 

"It doesn't have to be like this, Keith! I don't deserve to stand here and watch my friend die when I could stop it!" 

Her cool, soft little hand cupped the side of his neck while he choked on the second flower, and he felt the tearing pain of another already on its way up. 

He held it back for one more moment. "Don't take this away from me," he gasped. "Please." 

"I don't understand," she said, voice thick with tears. "It's not worth it. Keith." 

"It's my choice," he managed before the flowers choked him again. 

This time, he didn't get his breath back. 

~✬~

**~II~**

**Yellow Wallflower**

**Pidge**

~✤~

Keith fell unconscious, and for a moment, Pidge froze, unsure what to do. 

She closed her eyes. 

"Shit," she said. "I can't do this. Coran, get the stasis field. We're doing the surgery." 

"He won't thank you," Shiro told her solemnly. He sounded so knowing that Pidge did a double-take. 

But she didn't have time to examine that now. She had work to do, if she wanted to save her friend. 

~✤~

Keith opened his eyes. 

He didn't look at Pidge. 

"I feel hollow," he told Shiro. 

"I'm sorry," Shiro answered. "We were out of choices. We could lose some of you, or all of you. It wasn't my call. But I have to say, I'm glad Pidge made it." 

"I'm not." 

"That's okay," Shiro said, voice soft. "For now." 

Pidge slunk out of the room. It was worth it, she told herself firmly. Keith was alive. He had a chance to recover. To build something new. 

Her chest felt heavy. Like her old allergies were back. That had never happened in the sterilized air of the Castle. 

She coughed, and felt a flutter in her hand. 

A flower. Yellow, with four wide, round petals. 

"What the quiznak?" she muttered to herself, staring at it in disbelief. Then, she ran for her databases. 

It was a wallflower, she learned, probably of the English variety. They stood for faithfulness in adversity, and friendship. 

Just friendship. 

She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't made as terrible of a mistake as she'd feared. But it was still awful. 

Keith was her friend. She cared for him deeply. She'd do just about anything to keep him safe and well. 

Those feelings were now unreturned. 

And she suddenly understood why Keith would feel betrayed at having to give up something like this. 

~✤~

Pidge wondered if anyone had ever suffered a case of platonic Hanahaki before. It wasn't something that was in her databases. 

Friendship could fade naturally, but this one had been ripped up by the roots and Pidge felt the difference growing in her lungs. There had to be a deep betrayal, to make someone feel like this. It was probably quite rare. 

Still. Hanahaki, in any form, wasn't in her databases. 

How had Shiro known about it at all? 

Pidge sought him out, once Keith was sleeping again. She found him in his room, sitting on his bed and staring into nothing much. 

"How do you hide it?" she asked him. 

He looked up at her, suddenly wary. "Hide what?" he asked. 

"The flowers. The Hanahaki." 

Shiro sighed. "How did you guess?" 

"You knew too much, too easily." 

"I couldn't let that happen to him without helping in any way I could." 

"Yeah," she agreed. "Well, now I need to know more. I need to know how you hide it." 

He looked at her, frowning. "Why?" he asked. 

She took a deep breath, cleared her throat, and gave a small cough. Then she held out the resulting flower for him to see. 

"Oh," he said. "Who?" 

Her face twisted up. "Keith," she admitted. 

Shiro shook his head, perhaps in denial, perhaps confusion. "That can't be right. If you have flowers for him, then why the hell did he have flowers for you? Did you just suddenly - " 

"Do you know what flowers these are?" she interrupted. 

"No," he said slowly, "but I'm guessing you do." 

"Wallflowers." 

He looked pained. "I don't see what difference it makes. If you just suddenly started loving him...." 

"It's not like that," she bit out. 

He took a breath. "Okay, tell me. What's it like?" 

She forced the words out. "They're friendship flowers, Shiro." She looked down. "I can't love like the two of you do. But I still love. It's still important. It still... might be killing me. But if you're hiding yours from Keith? Then you get that he doesn't need to know." She looked him in the eye. "So tell me how to hide this." 

He sighed. "It's been getting harder," he said. 

~✤~

**~III~**

**Red Aster**

**Shiro**

~❁~

"How long?" Pidge asked, eyes solemn. 

Shiro hadn't told anybody about this. The habit to keep it secret was deeply ingrained. He pushed himself. She deserved to know. "I didn't think of Keith that way at the Garrison, but... it wasn't that long after all of you rescued me that that changed. The petals... when we were split up because the wormhole got destabilized, that's when I first noticed them. It took me a few days to learn to hide them." 

Her eyes went huge. "Shiro! That was months ago! How have you even survived?" 

He drew in a noisy breath, feeling it flutter the flowers as it passed. "Both you and Keith have... impulsive personalities. You let yourself get caught up in feelings. I knew that once Keith had devoted himself to someone enough to be coughing up whole flowers, there would be no suppressing it, no riding it out. There's a danger that you're the same way, but you might be able to slow it down. Keep it hidden for a little while longer." 

"Show me." 

Shiro reached into his vest and pulled out a little black diary, the kind with a band tying it shut. The full, red flowers pressed into it were familiar to him by now, but Pidge gasped. 

"Asters?" she asked. 

He nodded. "Red asters. Patience, love, undying devotion. I know that one. Apparently they run in my family." 

"Oh," she said. "So you press them?" 

"I keep them as close as I can," he agreed. 

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but instead of words, she doubled over in another coughing fit, small yellow and orange flowers scattering everywhere. 

He reached out to rub her back, soothing. "I want to say you've got it bad," he said, "but I'm honestly not sure what you've got." 

"It's Hanahaki," she gasped, gathering up the escaped flowers. "I'm just... extra weird." She turned to him. "Have an extra book anywhere?" 

Shiro grabbed one up, and handed it over. Pidge carefully placed the flowers inside, still coughing a little. 

He considered the unsteady slump of her shoulders for a moment. "I hate to say this...." he said, "but I think Keith should know." 

She glared at him. "You know you're a hypocrite, right, Shiro?" 

"Yeah." He sighed. "I'll tell him about mine, first." 

~❁~

When Shiro went back to visit Keith, this time Keith was looking more like himself. 

"Are you all right?" Keith asked, noticing something was off. 

"Not really," Shiro admitted. 

"Tell me," Keith said. 

"So Pidge asked me how I knew so much about Hanahaki," he began. "Because it's not in any of her databases." 

"Yeah, that's... a little weird, now that I'm thinking of it," Keith said. 

"It's because it runs in my family. It's because I have it." 

Keith's eyes widened. "You do?" he yelped. "But... who? And how are you..." 

"You," Shiro murmured. "It's been you for a long time now." He breathed carefully, feeling the air move the petals. He didn't have to hide any more, but he still didn't want to choke. Not now. Not when he might have the ghost of a chance to live. 

"I guess I'm not..." He gave a wheezy cough, pressing on the little book where it lay against his heart. "I guess I'm not much like her, am I?" 

Keith, who'd just been gaping, snapped his mouth shut immediately. "Shiro, you're..." He licked his lips, clearly mulling over what he should say. "The feelings are gone, but I remember the _why_ of it all. She's fierce, determined, decisive. Good under pressure. Wiser than anyone her age has a right to be. And beautiful, especially when she's fighting." He took a deep breath. "I think you're a lot like her. And right now, I trust you more." 

"But you don't love me." 

"I'm not _in_ love with you. Yet." 

Shiro took another unsteady breath. "I don't want you to... I don't want to pressure you." 

Keith shook his head. "I don't want you to die." 

"We both know that isn't enough." 

Keith made a frustrated noise. "Fuck. Shiro. I wish there was something I could do." 

"You don't have to do anything for me," Shiro insisted. 

"But I want to. Anything." 

Shiro wheezed, and finally let the next flower tear free. He gazed down at the red mass of petals in his hands as he told Keith, "You know that doesn't do anything to make me love you any less." 

Then he remembered Pidge, and what her actions had done to change Keith's feelings towards her. 

"Actually there is something I need you to do. Come on, hurry. I don't know how much time there is." 

~❁~

When they found her, Pidge was coughing a shower of small yellow and orange flowers into the toilet. 

"What is this?" Keith asked, completely flummoxed. 

"Wallflowers," she gasped out. She'd dropped the book Shiro had given her, and the blossoms had spilled out around it, a riot of warm, joyful color that made Shiro feel ill. 

"I don't understand." 

"She loves you," Shiro told Keith. "Not the way you loved her, but something that was lost when you had the surgery. Your friendship with her." 

"Oh," Keith said, gazing down at her. 

"Don't..." She retched again. "Don't blame yourself. I betrayed your trust." She winced. "I get that now." 

"I don't forgive you," he said, but then he glanced at Shiro, and he continued. "But I do understand. So... don't die, okay?" He held out a hand to her, like an offering. "I could... still consider you a friend." 

Pidge panted, but Shiro thought that her breathing sounded a little easier. 

~❁~

Pidge and Shiro recovered slowly, but they did recover. It was easy to tell with Pidge. She never became very successful at hiding when she was having an attack. 

Shiro thought the new lightness in his chest might have been wishful thinking, until one day, after a rough battle and the successful formation of Voltron, Keith ran from Red straight to Black and reeled Shiro in for an enthusiastic kiss. 

The other paladins cheered and whistled. Shiro just blinked idiotically at Keith's grinning face for a moment. 

"Yeah?" he asked softly. 

Keith chuckled. "Yeah," he agreed. 

Shiro never had to add another red aster to his little book. 

~❁~


End file.
